Lloyds Banking Group, prominent British retail, digital and mobile bank, is searching for a “Digital Currency & Innovation, Senior Manager.” The hire will work closely with the bank and its partners and “articulate market insights into central bank digital currency, crypto assets, and stablecoins to inform” Lloyds’ payments strategy sector, per the job post.
The bank, which has over 30 million customers in the U.K., did not detail whether the role would focus on Bitcoin or any other specific cryptocurrency. However, the hired candidate will “work collaboratively to progress the development of distributed ledger technology,” the job posting said.
If Lloyds chooses to foster digital transformation with a broad blockchain and cryptocurrency approach similar to a recent Spanish draft bill, time, money, and energy could be lost. Only if the bank chooses to focus on Bitcoin instead would its customers enjoy true digital transformation.
Contrary to mainstream assumptions, the real innovation created by Satoshi Nakamoto was Bitcoin, not blockchain. Without bitcoin, the currency, blockchain is rendered useless – a very inefficient method of recording financial transactions. However, with bitcoin and its proof of work (PoW) system, blockchain becomes helpful in the application of money, dependent on a native currency for security. Bitcoin’s transformative power lies in it being truly peer-to-peer, enabling distrusting parties to achieve unstoppable, irrevocable consensus independently – contrary to proprietary protocols which are not immutable.
After Walmart and Amazon both announced “digital currency” positions, Lloyds’ search for a similar hire has the potential to spark corporate adoption and economic transformation. By integrating Bitcoin and the Lightning Network natively to their services, the three companies could bring sound money and sovereignty to millions of people, cementing the medium of exchange role of money for bitcoin as its adoption increases in the coming years. Ultimately, sovereign adoption is what paves the way for hyperbitcoinization.